London 2012 – a lasting legacy for timber?

It is much too early to judge the legacy of the success of Team GB in the London 2012 Olympics. But with the Park successfully completed on time and the Games over and generally acknowledged as a triumph, can the timber industry congratulate itself on a job well done? Cast your mind back to the Wood for Gold initiative. Simply put, did it deliver? Has timber been used in groundbreaking applications and can we expect more demand for timber as a result?

Like all high-profile projects involving timber, much emphasis, and rightly so, has been on the sourcing of timber from sustainable sources. The Soil Association's Woodmark scheme has been the Olympic Delivery Authority's main compliance check, ensuring all timber is sourced either from FSC- or PEFC-accredited sources. Highlighting the sustainability credentials of timber is seen as a success.

Despite 56km of Siberian pine making up the Velodrome track, along with a skip's worth of nails and the success of Bradley Wiggins in the Tour which will no doubt increase cycling activity in the UK, I don't see many more velodromes being built soon. In contrast, the western red cedar provides a visually high impact shell to the velodrome, and may help persuade more architects and specifiers to use this versatile cladding material in large project commercial applications. Too often we see uninspiring coloured tin panels used in large commercial developments where timber could help break up the monotony.

While there was much debate at the time on the use of red louro for the aquatic centre ceilings due to questions over its sustainability, the FSC-certified material passed the test and will provide one of the most visually stunning backdrops to any of the Olympic events. This is a great platform for the use of sustainable tropical hardwoods. For those of us watching the BBC highlights each evening, it was great to see the BBC studio decked out in timber, including the settee!

One of the more striking uses of timber as cladding is the redwood on the two McDonald's restaurants (from the BBC studio you could see one in the background). It forms a striking cover to the temporary building and the whole internal structure is constructed using glulam posts and beams, together with glulam floors. Sadly the floors and ceilings are covered so the glulam cannot be appreciated except outside. There's a great time lapse of the construction on Youtube courtesy of McDonald's. The chain is upgrading many of its UK restaurants so let's hope timber plays a key part.

From a timber framer's and my personal perspective, it's sad that there are no structural timber buildings at the Park. We were hopeful that some of the athletes' village would be constructed in timber frame but it all went the way of concrete. The good news is the legacy of the Park should generate literally tens of thousands of new homes designed to a high specification which should favour timber frame.

We timber folk would like to have seen the whole project built in wood, nevertheless timber has been used in several high profile areas. Combine this with the sustainability credentials promoted by the more consumer-led Soil Association, and we can take some comfort that timber has been portrayed positively across the park. With good marketing it should generate more opportunities for timber, particularly in visual applications. What we now need to do is shout about it from the roof tops and perhaps the legacy projects that follow the Games will prove to be a bigger consumer of timber than the Games itself.